Did You Lose What Won't Return
by Jael K
Summary: After a mission goes horribly wrong, one Legend has an incredibly difficult decision to make. But he's not the only one who will be affected by it. Warning: There's no happy ending here, not really. At least, not for CaptainCanary shippers, although there is some happiness in it. You have been warned. Inspired by some of the promo pics for the next episode.


NOTE: Warning: There's no happy ending here, not really. At least, not for CaptainCanary shippers, although there is some happiness in it. You have been warned. Inspired by some of the promo pics for the next episode. Thanks, as always, to LarielRomeniel for the beta.

* * *

 _Did you lose what won't return?_  
 _Did you love but never learn?_  
 _The fire's out but still it burns_  
 _And no one cares, there's no one there_

"Flares," The Script

* * *

"You got him back? How is he?" Sara's moving at something between a jog and a flat-out run toward the Waverider's medbay, her hand at her comm, a mix of relief and worry bubbling up from somewhere inside. Maybe she won't lose another Snart on her watch, after all, she thinks distantly, taking a corner just a bit too fast and nearly smashing into a surprised Zari. Maybe…

"He's still out." Ray pauses and something in Sara's stomach flipflops. "They…they did something to him. Gideon is still running tests. But Constantine says something's off too."

Why would he… "Is John there?"

"He was. Stepped out a moment. Oh!" Surprise suffuses the man's tone. "I think he's waking up already. Leo, I mean. That's surprising; Gideon didn't think…"

Sara puts on another burst of speed, wondering precisely what Gideon didn't think.

Ray and Mick are both in the medbay, both watching Leo, who's prone in one of the chair/beds. He's wearing some sort of shapeless hospital-gown-type-thing, and there's a bloodstain or two on it, and Sara's heart plummets. But he's also stirring, and that's got to be good, right? It's got to mean that he's regaining consciousness, that it'll be fine, they'll get him home…

Mick looks over at her as she stops in her tracks, and they exchange a glance of understanding. Not their Snart, but there's a debt there, and they sure as hell don't want to see him die again.

Ray's closer, checking the monitors with a frown on his face, so when the man on the bed suddenly opens his eyes, tenses and lurches up and off the surface, landing shakily on his feet, it's Ray who first exclaims and tries to steady him.

The man wearing the hospital gown pulls away from him with an irritated snarl, which is not a sound she's ever heard out of Leo, so maybe Sara's already suspecting the impossible when he turns, freezing when he sees her and Mick.

Sara takes a step forward involuntarily, even as Mick whispers a muffled, disbelieving oath behind her.

Leonard Snart is staring back at them.

Later she'll wonder how she'd know so instantly that it was him, and not Leo. They're identical, after all. (Well, they're more than that, but those revelations are still to come.) But she knows it, instantly and instinctively, and simply stops dead in her tracks to stare.

Leonard stares back, those blue eyes watching her intently for a long moment. Ray moves to collect the wires and leads he'd disconnected and starts to say something to the man he's almost certainly still taking for Leo.

But Sara holds a hand up to stop him. She's not sure why. Maybe, she thinks faintly, she just wants to see what Leonard will say. He stares at her a moment longer, then transfers his gaze to Mick,

"Mick?" he says, and the voice is the same as she remembers, the familiar drawl with its faint edge. Always a shadow of the chill in it, even when he's making an effort not to use the Cold persona. "Good. You're OK." He lifts a hand to rub his eyes and wavers a little on his feet—although he also yanks his arm away when Ray, looking concerned, tries to steady him again.

"Back off, Boy Scout," he growls, but there's no real anger there. Ray blinks, starting to realize something's off, even as Leonard shakes his head roughly again.

"Musta been a dream," he mutters, then glances at Mick one more time before transferring his gaze to Sara.

 _His_ gaze. His eyes, that guarded expression she last saw at the Oculus, identical to Leo's eyes yet somehow completely different.

"Sara…" he murmurs, taking a step.

And then another. Another.

Sara can't move. Can't breathe. Can't…

Then Leonard's standing in front of her, eyes looking straight into hers, searching. Ray's saying something in the background and Mick's replying, but Sara can't quite hear them, because Leonard is there, he's right there in front of her, and…

And then he's kissing her, lips warm and slanted hard over hers, tentative at first and then more assured as she responds, because she can't help but respond, because it's _Leonard_ , and he's finally stealing that damned kiss.

There's a noise probably properly described as a squeak from Ray and a grunt from Mick-and an amused "well, well then!" from the tall man who stops one step inside the medbay. Sara, recognizing the voice, heaves an internal sigh and pulls away, just slightly. Leonard lets her go, lips quirking as he gazes at her…then visibly wobbles on his feet again. Sara puts out a hand involuntarily and he grabs it, accepting the help that he wouldn't from Ray, and, damn, that's another clue that this is an intrinsically different man than the one who'd gotten separated from her and John in that mental institution.

"Leonard?" she whispers, reaching out with her other hand to try to support him. "What's going on?"

"I…" He blinks at her, then shakes his head. "Damnit."

And then he drops like a stone.

It's sudden enough that Sara doesn't have a prayer of actually catching him. She yells to Mick and Ray as he hits the ground and there's a flurry of activity, the two men converging on them to get the fallen man back in the medbay chair, and John is going on about something and…

Sara can't breathe.

This can't be happening.

It is, she thinks distantly, too good to be true.

* * *

It _is_ happening. And it is too good to be true.

"There is brain damage," Gideon tells them promptly, once Leonard/Leo is settled back on the medbay bed, out cold and hooked up to all the different monitors again. "They performed some sort of procedure on him." She pauses. "Not a classic lobotomy, but enough to…affect portions of the brain that aren't entirely well known even to the Time Masters. I do not know what the goal would be been. It was, possibly, simply an experiment."

Mick curses, suggesting what he's going to do to the people responsible as soon as he can leave the ship. Sara doesn't disagree—not at all—but she motions for him to quiet anyway, needing the next shoe to drop.

"What else, Gideon?" she asks quietly. "Is this…"

"Now that I have had reason to run a scan on him, it is clear that the man we knew as Leo is physically the same as the man from Earth-1," Gideon says, pausing to let them digest her words. "His hand is of my make.

"He is, however," she continues, "approximately 39 months older than he should be chronologically. If the Oculus explosion knocked him through worlds, it could have knocked him through time as well. And perhaps have had an effect on his mind and memory. I'm not sure what else would have caused that." Another pause. "This is not a situation that has any clear equivalent in all my databanks."

John mutters to himself nearby, but Sara ignores him for the moment, especially since she needs to get the situation clear in her head and start coping with it.

"So," she says, looking at the man in the bed, "we're figuring that the Oculus somehow threw Snart into Earth-X, a few years ago. He didn't have any memory—I don't think Leo ever mentioned his past much, so I guess that's plausible—and wound up meeting The Ray and joining the Resistance."

Silence greets her words. John's across the room, holding a hand out over Leonard's motionless form, frowning, and Mick and Ray, the only other two remaining on the ship who knew Leonard Snart, look at each other. Then Mick huffs a sigh, shrugging.

"If he didn't remember anything, from when he grew up and all the shit after," he mutters grudgingly, "Snart mighta been a really different person. Hell, I woulda too." He's quiet a moment. "But…he knew me…the me from there…said they grew up together."

"If he had some foggy recollection of you from here, he might have thought that," Ray offered. "Memory's a weird thing."

Sara sighed. "And then he came back to Earth-1 with us and…"

"And the blighters at that hellhole fucked about with his brains and somehow screwed him up." John, strolling back over to them, sounds simultaneously angry and world-weary and admiring in a way only he, Sara thinks, can manage. "And it's not just memory—though I should say that's certainly part of it." He waves a hand at the man on the bed. "He's got…well, it's not _quite_ like two souls. Did before this mess too, but this is the first time I was able to put my finger precisely on what the oddity is."

The three of them stare at him. John—who's already run afoul of Gideon's ire multiple times for his habit—fishes a cigarette out of his pocket and turns it over in his fingers, clearly wanting to light it but unwilling to draw that ire again. For the moment.

"How is that even possible?" Ray asks after a moment. "Um. I mean…don't you…kinda just get one?"

Sara starts to respond, but John beats her to it. "Actually, Dr. Palmer, a lot of traditions allow for more than one soul," he says, pointing the unlit cigarette at the other man. "Some Inuit beliefs, some peoples of Asia and Indonesia…but, at any rate, I think this soul started out as a single one. It's almost like it…split. Like an, what is it, amoeba?"

"He's not a science experiment, British." But Mick doesn't sound angry. He does sound as world-weary as John at his weariest, though, and the warlock gives him a nod of acknowledgment, looking not entirely unsympathetic.

"You said you lot thought he died at some place that was outside of time?" he asks. "By an explosion? Who knows what getting knocked helter skelter through time will do to a bloke. And…well, magically speaking, a willing sacrifice might have earned himself some peace. From memory, anyway. A fresh start of a sort."

Sara snorts. "You call getting thrown into Earth-X _peace_? Seriously?"

"Well. Didn't say that peace might not be mixed with penance." A shadow crosses the man's face. "You did say he knew the dark."

"He did," Sara said quietly, standing as she hears the medbay monitors indicate a change in Leo…Leonard's…condition. "Ray, could you go tell the others what we know? I know they're wondering."

She hears Ray's assent, but she's focused on Leonard and on John, who's motioning to her to approach.

"Get him talking," he mutters. "I want to study the…situation…while he's awake and distracted. And you, love, are an excellent distraction, especially based on that little display."

Weirdness abounds, and John remains John. Sara smiles a little, even as she reaches out to touch Leonard's hand as his eyes flicker open.

And, yes, it's still Leonard.

"Sara," he murmurs. "Mick?"

"Hey." She reaches out another hand as Mick joins her and as Leonard tries to sit up. "Stay put for a minute. You hit the ground pretty hard."

"Oof."

That gets a snort out of Mick. "Yeah, oof. Boss? That you?"

Leonard blinks at him, then shakes his head, but not in a way that indicates dissent. "I ...think?" he mutters. "Ugh."

Sara hesitates, then, glancing at John, who's nodding at her, broaches the subject they're all dancing around. "Do you remember…Leo?" she asks quietly.

Leonard stops rubbing his eyes for a moment and blinks at her too. A frown crosses his face, then an odd, very unSnart-like smile. Sara, watching, thinks that's the most he's looked like his...like the man they'd thought was his doppelgänger...since he woke up.

"Leo," he says slowly. "Yeah...like…a distant dream. Or like a story I remember being told once, a long time ago." His eyes fly wide open then. "Blue light...and then this long dream, and then I woke up here."

Sara drags in a long breath, then lets it out, glancing at Mick.

"Leonard," she says, "we need to talk."

* * *

It's like remembering a fading dream, too, but they manage to establish that the man called Leo Snart woke up in Earth-X more than four years ago, with almost no memory at all. The only name he could dredge up was a childhood nickname, which the scouting party had apparently accepted as truth. They'd taken him to Earth-X's Mick Rory, whom he'd seemed to remember, and two fell in together as partners like they'd always meant to be that way.

Then he'd met Ray Terrill.

Leonard stares at the wall as he says the name, a puzzled frown on his face. Sara's heart twists, remembering how Leo had looked at the man with his heart in his eyes. She glances up at John, who's furiously frowning in Leonard's general direction, and sighs.

"Well?" she says.

It's the first time Leonard seems to notice that John Constantine is in the room. He twists about a little to observe the other man, eyebrows going up as he gives the warlock the patented Leonard Snart once-over, which is, at least, somewhat similar to the Leo Snart once-over. Although his reaction is not.

"Who the hell are you?" he says.

John gives Leonard the same slightly lascivious smile he'd given Leo in a similar circumstance, but Leonard just scowls at him, unimpressed. John shrugs and sighs, then strolls around to perch on a medbay stool near Sara and Mick.

"The trauma from the explosion and getting tossed through the multiverse...it not only wiped out your memory, mate, it just plain reset you." He shakes his head. "Even the depths of your subconscious mind, which isn't really how that's supposed to work. But you can't argue with what's there."

He points at Leonard. "You lived more than four years with no memory of…a lot of demons. It made you a different man. Literally. Your soul, it's split. I could guess your sacrifice at the Oculus thing had something to do with that too, as I told these two, but I can't know that. But that's what is."

Leonard stares at him, then closes his eyes.

"It wasn't a dream," he mutters, and Sara's heart twists again. Mick makes a faint noise and looks at John, who's watching them with sympathy in his eyes.

"Is it gonna stick?" Mick asks. "I mean...is it permanent?"

John nods to him, then looks back at Leonard, who's opened his eyes again. "Well, here's the thing. It doesn't have to be," he says. "Your AI says she can fix the brain damage, go back to before the 'hard reset' they unintentionally did on you. And I can...resort...the souls. Bring Leo back to the surface."

He points at the other man. "But that means _you_ go back to sleep. And you're probably not coming back from that. The choice you make...it's permanent."

Leonard's face goes still, blank, all the shutters down. Sara glances at Mick, then stares at John, who's still watching Leonard.

"It's all you, mate," he says quietly. "Your decision. But for both those things, it's gotta be quick. Say, 24 hours and that's from the time you woke up. Sooner might even be better, but I think we're confident saying that long.

"Let me know."

* * *

Sara leaves the medbay not long after that, giving Leonard space to ask John any more questions, space to talk to Mick, who has, after all, been a constant of sorts for both Leonard and Leo. She updates Ray, who tries to talk to her about it but flees before he can, heading for the study and the distraction of work.

It doesn't help, for once. She pushes some time charts around, then heads for her room. Maybe she can get some rest.

Maybe not.

It's a while later, already into what they consider nighttime in the ship's cycle, when there's a noise at the door. Sara, who's been lying in her bunk contemplating the ceiling, glances up, then pushes herself into a sitting position as Leonard—now dressed in his more habitual clothing, either from storage or the fabrication room-pauses in the doorway, then slowly strolls into the room, watching her.

She speaks before he does, as soon as the door slides shut behind him.

"You're going to let John do it, aren't you?" she says quietly. "You're going to go away again."

Leonard doesn't answer immediately, making his way to lean against the bunk and look up at her. Memory rises, of earlier conversations, but Sara stifles it, pushing it back down fiercely, waiting for him to speak.

"Yeah," he says finally.

She'd been expecting it. But...it still hurts, breaks something inside that had only just started to mend.

" _He_ promised to go back. I can't be the reason he breaks that promise," Leonard tell her, voice soft in a way she's rarely heard before. "I've broken too many in my life. Despite all the horror in his world, he's _happy_." There's a brief look of wonder on his face, and Sara almost smiles to see it. "And he has a mission, a purpose, people who are counting on him. I can't mess with that."

Sara nods, staring at her hands, which are loosely clasped before her. After a moment, to her immense surprise, she feels Leonard boost himself up onto the bunk, arranging himself to sit next to her. Their shoulders are brushing, their legs side by side, and it's the most physical contact she's ever seen Leonard make with anyone.

After a moment, she turns her head to see his face, see him watching her, eyes intent and dark. So they're going to have this conversation, she thinks, before he goes. She's not sure if she's glad or terrified.

"Sara, we both know I'm all sorts of shades of messed up," Leonard says quietly after a moment. "I can't imagine loving someone with the...generosity of spirit that he loves Ray Terrill with. It's...amazing." Sara watches him swallow, shake his head. "It took me...how long?...and probably more nerve than I'd ever managed before to just...admit...to myself and you that I had...feelings."

"At all?" Sara asks, trying to keep her tone light and failing miserably. She shifts a little to face him better and they're close, so close.

"About you."

Echoes. So many echoes. Sara closes her eyes, then opens them, and he's still there, watching her.

"Mick doesn't need me. Not anymore," he says, after a moment, lifting a hand as she starts to argue. "I just...We talked a little. Trust me." He shakes his head. "And Lisa's got a better chance at life without me. And before you argue, I got Gideon to tell me more about where she is, the path she's on. It's good. Better." A slight smile. "Not the one I would have predicted for her, but...good."

So few reasons for him to stay. Sara smiles sadly, looking at her hands again, then back up at him.

The look on his face is...it reminds her of his expression at the Oculus. She hadn't been ready for that look, and the realization is a punch in the stomach. She makes a noise of denial, involuntarily, and Leonard hesitates, then shakes his head.

"I don't regret leaving much," he says quietly, lifting a hand to brush a piece of hair out of her face. "But I regret leaving you."

"Me and you?" Sara whispers, regretting it immediately. She tries to look away, but Leonard's left hand is now along the side of her face, his eyes searching hers. After a moment, his lips twist in a rather self-deprecating fashion.

"Probably wouldn't have worked anyway," he murmurs, fingers stroking down her jaw. "Both too stubborn."

Sara closes her eyes again, leaning into the touch. "Would have liked the chance to try."

"Yeah. Me too."

And then he's kissing her again, not the desperate kiss of the Oculus or the fiercely stolen kiss from earlier in the medbay, but something softer, sweeter, a might-have-been. Sara leans into it without even meaning to, lifting a hand to wrap her fingers in his shirt, holding him there, making it last. It starts to heat up, and they let it, because there's no room for regrets here, and no more time.

When they finally part, she looks up at him again. But he's not looking back; that blue gaze is turned inward. And then, as she watches, he's back, and there's that look of wonder in his eyes again.

"He…doesn't mind," he whispers. "Leo. He's making an effort to tell me...you...so. That it's...OK."

"Mind…?" Sara stares at him, then sucks in a breath as the meaning of the words registers. "You're sure?"

"Sure as I can be." His expression's starting to change, darkening, and not in a bad way. "Sara?"

It's a question, that word, and she does him, them, the grace of turning it over for a moment. But there's really only one answer for her, for him, right now.

Sara lets a spark of mischief show as she looks up at him, letting her answer enter her eyes.

"Well," she drawls, reaching for him again, "Leo _is_ big on closure."

That gets a slight laugh. Leonard smirks at her, and then they let go of it all, reaching for each other, hesitation falling away faster than Sara would have thought possible.

The next kiss isn't desperate, or fierce, or sweet. Or rather, it's all of them and none of them, and they're both smiling as their lips meet, despite the fading time, despite everything. After a moment, Sara growls a little in mock frustration, and grabs two fistfuls of his shirt again, pulling him against her, then toppling them both back onto the bunk.

From there, well, they both lose track for a while, letting desire run wild, touching and tasting, egging each other on with murmured comments and incoherent noises. Eventually, Sara's shirt is mostly unbuttoned, and she sits up to shuck it off entirely, throwing it to the floor. Leonard, who's somehow retained his sweater although Sara had long since managed to get his (very annoying) tight jeans off, sits, then stands up to watch her, groaning as she starts to wriggle out of her own jeans.

Well, then. She makes the process as suggestive as possible, keeping her eyes on his as she runs her fingers over the black silk of her panties, eventually kicking the jeans to the floor. Kneeling on the bed, she stretches, confident in what the movement will do to her body-and smiles at the noise he makes.

"This isn't quite fair," she whispers, nodding at his relative state of dress.

"True." He eyes her, gripping the bottom of his sweater, desire and something a little more complicated in his gaze. Sara, watching him hesitate, reaches out, catching his hands in hers.

"Do you want me to dim the lights?" she asks quietly. "It's OK."

But Leonard shakes his head roughly, taking a step back.

"No," he mutters in return, yanking the sweater up over his head, voice muffled by the fabric. "If not now, when?"

Point. She watches as he pulls the sweater off, and the shirt beneath it, balling them up in his hands briefly before taking a deep breath and dropping them to the floor before looking back up at her.

Sara takes a good long look in return, drinking him in, lean muscle and vicious scars and all, letting him see the continuing desire in her eyes before she shifts to sit on the edge of the bed and reaches out to pull him to her.

"You gonna make love to me, Leonard?" she murmurs into his ear, running her fingers down his spine and feeling him sigh under her touch. "You better be a hell of a thief."

She can feel his chuckle through his chest just before he turns his head to look at her, moving even closer. Sara wraps her legs around his waist, closing her eyes as they move together, then opens them with a gasp as he slides one hand, with those oh-so-nimble fingers, between them.

"Stole that kiss, didn't I?" he whispers, those blue eyes staring into her, his lips only fraction of an inch away, fingers dipping beneath the black silk.

Sara shudders, staring back, licking her lips and lifting an eyebrow, trying to regain just a little of her equilibrium.

"Yes, but it took you long enough." This is so them, she thinks, bantering to keep the feelings at bay. Or, at least, to pretend they're at bay.

"Well…" The lopsided smile-smirk on his face, his body warm and hard against hers, eyes darkened but warm and intent on her: That's how she wants to remember him, Sara decides—then ruthlessly shoves the thought away, trying to stay in the moment.

Fortunately, he makes it easy, turning his head to whisper, warm breath soft against her ear, fingers stroking even lower. "You wouldn't want me to rush things _too_ much…"

And then there's too much going on to even think about the future. Just the moment, and all the heat between them.

* * *

Much later, she wakes in the night and puts out a hand, surprised just a little to find Leonard still there, warm and solid, spending his last night asleep besides her.

He sighs at the touch, and opening his eyes, stares at her, blue gaze gray in the low light. After a few moments, they once again reach for each other at the same time.

One more farewell, then, this time slow, even reverent, careful and tender. The only words a quiet gasping of names, the only things they can touch, feel, hear, each other.

When they fall asleep again, they're curled up together, no space between them. No space for the demons. No room for regrets.

* * *

He leaves her in the morning, not lingering, and Sara understands. She keeps her eyes closed as she feels his lips brush her forehead, she keeps her eyes closed as she listens to him dress, and she keeps her eyes closed as she hears the door slide open and closed.

She keeps her eyes closed and tries to make sure everything's committed to memory. All her senses, scent and sound and touch, every moment of last night. She didn't get a chance to prepare, before. Now, she has one.

There's a little time. Leonard has more things to say to Mick too, she's sure, and maybe even to Ray. A little time.

But not much. Not much at all.

After a while, she rises, then goes to the training room and works out a little bit, losing herself in more physical activity and the pleasant burn of her muscles. She checks the course of the ship, and then heads back to her room. She showers and she dresses—her original White Canary outfit, the one she wore to the bar in St. Roch.

And then it's time.

By the time she gets to the outer room of the medbay, Ray and Amaya, of all people, are walking out. Ray glances at her and away, distress in his eyes, but keeps going. They'll talk about it later, Sara's pretty sure. Maybe drink a toast, her and Mick and Ray. The last of the Legends.

Amaya gives her a look that tells her that they're going to be talking about it, too, if in a different way. She pauses just outside the door, an aura of waiting about her, and Sara, after a moment, realizes why.

Good.

John's waiting near the door to the inner part of the medbay. He lifts an eyebrow at her, but Sara doesn't take the bait, for once. She's watching Mick and Leonard say their farewells.

Leonard's body language is still very...Leonard. His arms are folded and his expressive is all studied insouciance. Mick's watching him in return, arms also folded, but there's something a little more complicated in his eyes and expression, and Sara knows it's a measure of how far Mick's come.

"Tell the kid goodbye for me," Leonard's saying as she draws closer. "And make sure you give Hunter one last insult – and make sure you tell him it's from me." A smirk, there and gone, and then a pause.

"And Barry..." he says finally, then frowns, then shrugs. "Eh. He knows."

Mick snorts. Leonard smirks. So much history there, Sara thinks, watching, and so much pain.

The two men pause a long moment, then Mick shakes his head as Leonard offers him a hand. Instead, he grabs his oldest friend in a bear hug.

"Bye, Boss," he says, voice rough.

Then he turns and quickly walks away, heading for the door, where Amaya is waiting for him.

Leonard watches him go, then turns to Sara.

They've already said what they needed to say to each other. So they just look at each other. A last memory.

Finally, Leonard nods. There's finality in the gesture.

"Goodbye," he says quietly, "Sara."

"Goodbye," she says, just as quietly, "Leonard."

And this time, it's him that turns and leaves.

* * *

She's in the study, later, burying herself in work to keep from thinking, from wondering. She's completely lost track of time when she hears the noise from the door.

Leo's standing there, watching her.

It's unquestionably Leo; again, she can't really say how she finds it so very obvious, but it is. While she's been distracting herself with Time Master journals and charts, something precious has slipped away, and she didn't even see it go.

The burning in her eyes makes her look away, then back, watching Leo stroll into the room, his grace very like Leonard's, yet very different. It wasn't so long ago that she'd been indulging in some very vigorous carnal activity with that same body. Sara glances back down at the map, feeling an unfamiliar rush of warmth in her face, then shakes her head and looks back up.

"Thanks," she says quietly.

Really, what else can she say?

Leo nods to her, gaze calm and steady. He leans against the desk, studying her, and as much as Sara wants to look away, she doesn't let herself. After a moment, she sees a glimmer of something in his eyes, almost...mischief.

"I think," he says after a moment, "that given how tired and slightly worn out I am right now, maybe I need a nap more than thanks. I'm a bit older than you, and apparently not in as good shape as I thought I was."

Sara actually laughs, feeling herself flush a little again.

"But," she says, "your Ray…"

Leo smiles and waves away the protest. "I can tell you, Sara, that almost no one could understand better about taking the time with the people you love while you still can. I'll tell him what happened and why, and he'll give me some shit about it." A smirk, one that's almost familiar. "And then I'll make it up to him."

Sara laughs a little, looking down yet again and smoothing the map on the desk with her hands. Then she glances back up.

"Is _he_...there?" she asks, and they both know who she's talking about. "At all?"

Leo's gaze goes distant, much like Leonard's had last night. But then he shakes his head, something unfathomable in his eyes.

"He's…asleep," he says after a moment, quietly. "Like a fading dream."

"Sacrificing himself again," Sara whispers, then shuts her eyes. "Damnit. I'm sorry, Leo. It's not that I want you to be gone. He made that choice, and I understand why. I just…"

"You thought he was gone, and then he wasn't, and now he is again." There's understanding in his voice and, when Sara looks at him, in his eyes. "And even though you got a…decent goodbye, this time..." He smirks, his expression again familiar. "...it was still a goodbye."

Sara doesn't trust herself to say anything, though, at the sight of that smirk. She turns away, eyes burning again. But Leo doesn't let her. He moves with her, reaching out to catch her right hand and bringing it up to his chest, putting it over his heart.

Leonard's heart, beating steadily.

And then the tears overflow and she curses every single one of them as they do. Leo just stands there with her, holding her hand, letting her grieve.

"This is a gift, Sara, the most precious gift I could ever have been given," he says, finally. "And I swear to you I'll make the most of it."

She sniffs, angry at her sorrow, all the mourning she hadn't let herself do before, but she also looks him in the eye, because he deserves it. "And your Ray."

"And my Ray." There's a light shining in his eyes that makes her smile as he says the name. "And you know, you should too."

Sara, regretfully, pulls her hand away. "What do you mean?"

"You don't let yourself get close to people. Oh, sure, physical closeness." He waves a hand. "But not real intimacy." Another smirk. "I recall…enough of last night…to say you let yourself do that for the first time in years. Remember it. Look for it. Appreciate it."

Sara studies him. "OK," she says finally. "I'll try."

Leo nods, a slightly different expression entering his eyes. "I can tell you this, and I'm sure of it to the bottom of my soul. Souls," he amends. "He wanted you to be happy."

She's still digesting that as he takes a step back.

"And now, when you're ready," Leo tells her, "I'd like to go back to Central City, let Cisco Ramon send me back to Earth-X." He grins. "I think I have a very important question to ask someone."

Sara lifts her eyes and regards him for a long moment. Then she smiles.

"I'll set the course right away," she says. "It shouldn't be too long."

"Thank you. Captain."

Sara watches him go, then looks down at the papers before her. After a time, she shakes her head, moving out of the study and onto the bridge, crossing to the viewscreen and its sparkling panorama, all the potential and the pain of time, spread out before her.

She thinks about cards and scotch, about Captain & Tennille, about taking chances and making amends.

About love great enough to sacrifice itself.

And the life ahead of her, waiting.

"Thanks, Leonard," she whispers, staring out at the timestream. "Sleep well."

* * *

 _But did you see the flares in the sky?_  
 _Were you blinded by the light?_  
 _Did you feel the smoke in your eyes?_  
 _Did you, did you?_  
 _Did you see the sparks filled with hope?_  
 _You are not alone_  
 _'Cause someone's out there, sending out flares_


End file.
